Professor Sues Pace University, Claims Religious Jews Were Pushed Out

(JTA) — A former professor has sued Pace University in New York for discrimination, claiming observant Jewish and older teachers were pushed out of the math department.

Jonathan Gersch, who is Jewish and wore a yarmulke to the school’s Manhattan campus, said he worked as an adjunct math and statistics professor at Pace for more than 15 years, according to a New York Post report Thursday about his $500,000 lawsuit.

In 2016, a new department chair, Shing So, started cleaning house to bring in younger and cheaper staff, according to the lawsuit, which Gersch filed Wednesday in Manhattan State Supreme Court.

Gersch alleged that he was forced out under false pretenses after the university did not renew his position in March 2017.

His suit claims that soon after 2016, all of the “observant Jews” and 50 percent of the employees at the university for 15 years or more were let go.

“While observant Jews were under 8 percent of the 51 adjuncts, ALL of them — 100 percent — were pushed out after the 2016 academic year,” the suit says.

Gersch said “there had been friction” between him and the university “regarding making reasonable accommodations for Jewish holidays in the past,” the Post’s report quotes court papers as saying.

He filed a similar suit in February, which is still pending, according to the Post.

Marie Boster, a Pace spokeswoman, told the Post that the university “has a zero tolerance policy against discrimination in the workplace.”

“Under the university’s policies, if we receive a complaint, we investigate thoroughly and take appropriate action,” she said.

So did not immediately return an email from the Post requesting comment.

Alleged Stabber Of Jewish Family Claims He Forgot Why He Attacked Them

AMSTERDAM (JTA) — A Dutch man charged with the attempted manslaughter of a Jewish father and son said he forgot why he stabbed them.

During the first hearing in the case, the victims asked the judge to consider a religious or racist motive, which currently is not included in the incitement.

Taha Ewis Bakri Abdel Ghani did not deny the assaults in March on Martin Colmans and his son Sharon, vendors in the Albert Cuyp Market.

The accused worked in a shop on the market and had had several disputes in the past with the Colmans and others, who complained to authorities about violence on his part.

At Thursday’s hearing, a lawyer for Ewis Bakri Abdel Ghani presented psychiatric evaluations to the Amsterdam criminal tribunal declaring him mentally unfit to stand trial for his actions, according to a report by the AT5 television station.

Along with the manslaughter charges for the stabbing of Colmans and his son Sharon, Ewis Bakri Abdel Ghani is charged with assault against Colmans’ wife.

“I don’t know what happened. It’s not a period of my life I want to remember,” Ewis Bakri Abdel Ghani said at the hearing.

Ewis Bakri Abdel Ghani had become more devout in his Muslim faith in the months leading up to the assault, during which he flew frequently to Egypt, the Colmanses said. He began praying outside his shop, reading the Quran and leering at them, they said.

Esther Voet, editor in chief of the NIW Jewish weekly, who attended the hearing, wrote that the defendant wouldn’t answer when asked whether the attack was anti-Semitic, replying only that his “brother-in-law is a judge.”

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First Daughter and presidential advisor Ivanka Trump told a gathering of Republican donors in August that she had acquired her moral compass from her father, Politico reported Friday.

Trump made her remarks at a fundraising event in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, two attendees told the news website. She was being interviewed by former “Entertainment Tonight” host Mary Hart about her life and her time in the White House. President Trump called into the talk on speakerphone and praised his daughter and her husband Jared Kushner, who is also a senior White House advisor.

Ivanka made similar comments at the Republican National Convention in 2016, Politico noted. “My father taught my siblings and me the importance of positive values and a strong ethical compass,” she said then.

American Hebrew Academy (AHA), in Greensboro, North Carolina, is a pluralistic Jewish boarding school that was founded by Chico Sabbah, an insurance magnate and philanthropist, almost twenty years ago. After Sabbah was sued for committing insurance fraud in the early 2000s, the school lost its primary benefactor and source of funding. It had been steadily losing money until this year.

Now publicly available documents suggest that while the school still officially owns the property, a Chinese firm called Puxin has assumed financial liability for the school and has leased the campus, taking de facto control, according to Alan Myrick, Assistant Assessor for Real Property in Guilford County, where Greensboro is located.

“There’s something missing, in that the lease agreement is not here for review, so we don’t know whats going on exactly,” he told the Forward Friday. “But it does appear that Puxin Limited has gotten some lease fee ownership of the property.”

“They really have assumed de facto ownership through a long-term lease,” Myrick said of Puxin.

In June, Glenn Drew, the school’s CEO, announced AHA’s closure at a routine end-of-year staff meeting. Faculty and students scrambled to find new jobs and schools, with roughly two months to go before the start of this current school year.

Former staff told the Forward in June that Drew had been advocating to bring Chinese students to AHA, in order to offset the costs of running the academy and managing its 100-acre campus. Last year, they said, two Chinese students attended the school.

According to former AHA staff and students who notified the Forward about the reopening, no formal announcement was made, and they said they were made aware after visiting the website.

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(JTA) — The popular video blogger PewDiePie announced a donation of $50,000 to the Anti-Defamation League, then rescinded it a day later after fan feedback.

PewDiePie, whose name is Felix Kjellberg of Sweden, made the announcement of the donation on Wednesday during an online celebration of surpassing 100 million subscribers, saying he wanted to get past previous “controversies.”

“I made a lot of mistakes on the way but I’ve grown. I feel like I have at least. and I feel like I’ve finally come in terms with the responsibilities I have as a creator. 100 million subs too late,” he said during the announcement, “but, you know.”

Among those were in February 2017, when Disney and YouTube distanced themselves from PewDiePie after he broadcast a video of two South Asian men dressed in green loincloths holding a sign reading “Death To All Jews.” The video was viewed more than 6 million times before it was removed by Google, which owns YouTube. In addition, the shooter in Christchurch, New Zealand, said “Subscribe to PewDiePie” before carrying out his attack last spring.

Among the comments from his followers panning the donation were suggestions that he was blackmailed by the ADL in order to be in good standing again on YouTube and in the media, implying that Jews control the media. They also objected to him giving money to an organization that has criticized him.

In a tweet that has since been removed, but preserved in screenshot, the video blogger said: “Making a donation to the ADL doesn’t make sense to everyone, especially since they’ve outright spoken against me. I think it’s important, this just isn’t my fight anymore.”

PewDiePie said Thursday that he “didn’t know a lot of things that surfaced throughout this whole thing about the charity.”

“I made the mistake of picking a charity that I was advised to instead of picking a charity that I’m personally passionate about. Which is 100 percent my fault,” he said.

He said he still plans to donate the money and will take his time deciding.

The ADL said in a statement that it had found out about the donation when it was announced on PewDiePie’s channel and had not received any personal communication from the celebrity.